John IV of Portugal

Dom John IV (19 March 1604 – 6 November 1656), was King of Portugal from 1640 until his death in 1656. The grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, a claimant to the crown during the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580, he was proclaimed king in 1640 following the outbreak of the Portuguese Restoration War.

This ended the 60-year-old Iberian Union with Spain, and put the House of Braganza on the Portuguese throne. By the time of his death in 1656, the Portuguese Empire had reached its maximum territorial extent.

Early life

John IV was born at Vila Viçosa and succeeded his father Teodósio II as Duke of Braganza when the latter died insane in 1630. He married Luisa de Guzmán (1613–66), the eldest daughter of Juan Manuel Pérez de Guzmán, 8th Duke of Medina Sidonia, in 1633. John was described as having blonde hair and an average height.

Reign Accession

When Philip II of Portugal (III of Spain) died, he was succeeded by his son Philip III (IV of Spain), who had a different approach to Portuguese issues. Taxes on the Portuguese merchants were raised, the Portuguese nobility began to lose its influence, and government posts in Portugal were increasingly occupied by Spaniards. Ultimately, Philip III tried to make Portugal a Spanish province, meaning Portuguese nobles stood to lose all of their power.

This situation culminated in a revolution organised by the nobility and the bourgeoisie, The ensuing conflict with Spain brought Portugal into the Thirty Years' War as, at least, a peripheral player. From 1641 to 1668, the period during which the two nations were at war, Spain sought to isolate Portugal militarily and diplomatically, and Portugal tried to find the resources to maintain its independence through political alliances and maintenance of its colonial income.

Restoration War

His accession led to a protracted war with neighbouring Spain, a conflict known as the Portuguese Restoration War, which ended with the recognition of Portuguese independence in a subsequent reign (1668). Portugal signed lengthy alliances with France (1 June 1641) and Sweden (August 1641) but by necessity its only contributions in the Thirty Years' War were in the field against Spain and against Dutch encroachments on the Portuguese colonies.

The period from 1640 to 1668 was marked by periodic skirmishes between Portugal and Spain, as well as short episodes of more serious warfare, much of it occasioned by Spanish and Portuguese entanglements with non-Iberian powers. Spain was involved in the Thirty Years' War until 1648 and the Franco-Spanish War until 1659, while Portugal was involved in the Dutch–Portuguese War until 1663. In Spain, a Portuguese invasion force defeated the Spanish at Montijo, near Badajoz, in 1644.

Imperial Recovery Abroad, the Dutch took Portuguese Malacca (January 1641), and the Imam of Oman captured Muscat (1650). Nevertheless, the Portuguese, despite having to divide their forces among Europe, Brazil, and Africa, managed to retake Luanda, in Portuguese Angola, from the Dutch in 1648 and, by 1654, had recovered northern Brazil, which effectively ceased to be a Dutch colony. This was countered by the loss of Portuguese Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka) to the Dutch, who took Colombo in 1656.

Death and legacy King John IV died in 1656 and was succeeded by his son Afonso VI. His daughter, Catherine of Braganza, married King Charles II of England. Bombay in India was given as dowry to the English.

John was a patron of music and the arts, and a considerably sophisticated writer on music; in addition to this, he was a composer. During his reign he collected one of the largest libraries in the world, but it was destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Among his writings are a defence of Palestrina, and a Defence of Modern Music (Lisbon, 1649). One famous composition attributed to him is a setting of the Crux fidelis, a work that remains highly popular during Holy Week amongst church choirs. However, no known manuscript of the work exists, and it was first published only in 1869, in France. On stylistic grounds, it is generally recognised that the work was written in the nineteenth century.

In 1646, John IV proclaimed Mary, in her conception as the Immaculate Conception (the 'Immaculata'), the Patroness of Portugal by royal decree of the House of Braganza. The doctrine had appeared in the Middle Ages and had been fiercely debated in the 15th and 16th centuries, but a bull issued in 1616 by Pope Paul V finally "[forbade] anyone to teach or preach a contrary opinion." Three years later, in 1649, the iconography of the Immaculata was established by Francisco Pacheco (1564–1654), a Spanish artistic advisor to the Inquisition, based on Revelation XII:1.

Marriages and descendants John married Luisa de Guzmán, daughter of Juan Manuel Pérez de Guzmán, 8th Duke of Medina-Sidonia. From that marriage several children were born. Because some of John's children were born and died before their father became king, they are not considered infantes or infantas (heirs to the throne) of Portugal.

NameBirthDeathNotesBy Luisa de Guzmán (13 October 1613 – 27 February 1666; married on 12 January 1633)Infante Teodósio 8 February 1634 13 May 1653 Prince of Brazil and 9th Duke of Braganza. Died at the age of 19.Ana de Bragança 21 January 1635 21 January 1635 Stillborn.Infanta Joana (Joan) 18 September 1635 17 November 1653 Died at the age of 18.Infanta Catherine (Catarina) 25 November 1638 31 December 1705 Commonly known as Catherine of Braganza. Queen consort through marriage to Charles II of England.Manuel de Bragança 6 September 1640 6 September 1640 Stillborn.Infante Afonso 21 August 1643 12 September 1683 Prince of Brazil and 10th Duke of Braganza. Succeeded him as Afonso VI, King of Portugal. Infante Peter (Pedro) 26 April 1648 9 December 1706 Duke of Beja, Constable of the Kingdom, Lord of the Casa do Infantado and Regent of the Kingdom before succeeding his brother Afonso as Peter II, King of Portugal.Illegitimate offspringMaria de Bragança 30 April 1644 7 February 1693 Natural daughter.

Ancestry